Читать книгу One Day & Another: A Lyrical Eclogue - Cawein Madison Julius - Страница 12

Perhaps we lived in the days

Of the Khalif Haroun er Reshid;

And loved, as the story says

Did the Sultan's favorite one

And the Persian Emperor's son,

Ali ben Bekkar, he

Of the Kisra dynasty.

Do you know the story? – Well,

You were Haroun's Sultana.

When night on the palace fell,

A slave through a secret door, —

Low-arched on the Tigris' shore, —

By a hidden winding stair

Brought me to your bower there.

Then there was laughter and mirth,

And feasting and singing together,

In a chamber of wonderful worth;

In a chamber vaulted high

On columns of ivory;

Its dome, like the irised skies,

Mooned over with peacock eyes;

Its curtains and furniture,

Damask and juniper.

Ten slave girls – like unto blooms —

Stand, holding tamarisk torches,

Silk-clad from the Irak looms;

Ten handmaidens serve the feast,

Each girl like a star in the east;

Ten lutanists, lutes a-tune,

Wait, each like the Ramadan moon.

For you in a stuff of Merv

Blue-clad, unveiled and jewelled,

No metaphor known may serve:

Scarved deep with your raven hair,

The jewels like fireflies there,

Blossom and moon and star,

The Lady Shemsennehar.

The zone that girdles your waist

Would ransom a Prince and Emeer;

In your coronet's gold enchased,

And your bracelet's twisted bar,

Burn rubies of Istakhar;

And pearls of the Jamshid race

Hang looped on your bosom's lace.

You stand like the letter I;

Dawn-faced, with eyes that sparkle

Black stars in a rosy sky;

Mouth like a cloven peach,

Sweet with your smiling speech;

Cheeks that the blood presumes

To make pomegranate blooms.

With roses of Rocknabad,

Hyacinths of Bokhara, —

Creamily cool and clad

In gauze, – girls scatter the floor

From pillar to cedarn door.

Then a poppy-bloom at each ear,

Come the dancing girls of Kashmeer.

Kohl in their eyes, down the room, —

That opaline casting-bottles

Have showered with rose perfume, —

They glitter and drift and swoon

To the dulcimer's languishing tune;

In the liquid light like stars,

And moons and nenuphars.

Carbuncles, tragacanth-red,

Smoulder in armlet and anklet;

Gleaming on breast and on head

Bangles of coins, that are angled,

Tinkle; and veils, that are spangled,

Flutter from coiffure and wrist

Like a star-bewildered mist.

Each dancing-girl is a flower

Of the Tuba from vales of El Liwa. —

How the bronzen censers glower!

And scents of ambergris pour

And myrrh brought of Lahore,

And musk of Khoten! how good

Is the scent of the sandal-wood!

A lutanist smites her lute;

Sings loves of Mejnoon and Leila —

Her voice is a houri flute; —

While the fragrant flambeaux wave

Barbaric o'er free and slave,

O'er fabrics and bezels of gems

And roses in anadems.

Sherbets in ewers of gold,

Fruits in salvers carnelian;

Flagons of grotesque mold,

Made of a sapphire glass,

Brimmed with wine of Shiraz;

Shaddock and melon and grape

On plate of an antique shape.

Vases of frosted rose,

Of limpid alabaster,

Filled with the mountain snows;

Goblets of mother-of-pearl,

One filigree silver-swirl;

Vessels of gold foamed up

With spray of spar on the cup.

Then a slave bursts in with a cry:

"The eunuchs! the Khalif's eunuchs! —

With scimitars bared draw nigh!

Wesif and Afif and he,

Chief of the hideous three,

Mesrour! – the Sultan's seen

'Mid a hundred weapons' sheen!"

Did we part when we heard this? No!

It seems that my soul remembers

How I clasped you and kissed you, so.

When they came they found us – dead

On the flowers our blood dyed red;

Our lips together, and

The dagger in my hand.